21 February 2017
Newsdesk
Lin-Manuel Miranda has no desire to host the Academy Awards.
The multi-talented actor and playwright will attend the glitzy Jimmy Kimmel-hosted ceremony on Sunday (26Feb17) for the first time, as he is nominated for best original song for How Far I'll Go from Disney's animated movie Moana.
While Lin-Manuel's versatility as a performer, having created and starred in the hit Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights, makes him a favourite to helm the awards, he claims the gig truly isn't on his radar.
"Hosting the Oscars is not a thing I would ever want to do," he wrote in a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter. "You always have to do this dance as a host: You're playing to a billion people at home, and you're playing to anxious contestants in a room, and that's an insanely hard thing to divide."
The Tony award-winning performer explained that his favourite Oscar hosts include Steve Martin, Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal. Though he will never forget the tension in the room when Seth MacFarlane performed a number called We Saw Your Boobs at the star-studded event in 2013, with the controversial song drawing criticism from Hollywood's leading ladies, including Jane Fonda and Lena Dunham.
"It's the most thankless task in the world. I have a pretty healthy ego, but it does not extend in that direction. I'd much rather be the guy writing the opening tune than having to deliver it," the 37-year-old added.
The star, who has been filming the upcoming Mary Poppins Returns in London opposite Emily Blunt, then shared that the one Oscars moment that has truly stuck with him throughout his career was when Whoopi won best supporting actress for Ghost in 1991.
"I'll never forget, at the top of her acceptance speech she said, "Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted this," which is so rare," he recalled. "Then she said, 'As a little kid, I lived in the projects, and you're the people I watched. You're the people who made me want to be an actor.' For me, it was like she was saying, 'If you want this, you can get it, too. I'm proof that you can.'"
